Leslie ponders what she’s learned from Prosecutor Erickson. If he is to be believed—and, she does believe him—he loved Amy. He is devastated by her death, and he feels guilty because he knows that he’s the kind of man who will always put his career and social standing before his personal happiness. Whatever he feels for his wife, it’s nothing compared to what he felt—what he still feels—for Amy. Leslie had been prepared to hate this man when she first talked to him, and oddly enough, she ended up feeling sorry for him instead. He is a decent man trying to do the right thing; he just can’t be the man he wants to be. Leslie pushes that aside to concentrate on the salient point of the conversation—he has no alibi for the time of Amy’s death. This means he’s still on the suspect list, though Leslie doesn’t think he killed Amy. Still, she can’t let emotion cloud her judgment, so she keeps him on the list for now. She finds herself hoping she can find information that will exonerate him.
Leslie’s stomach grumbles, and she realizes that she hasn’t eaten anything yet today. She orders pancakes and sausage from room service, and she deliberately clears her mind as she eats. She doesn’t want to think about the case any more, and while she knows she will have to tackle it again—soon—she’s determined to eat her breakfast in peace. The pancakes are surprisingly tasty for hotel fare, but the sausages are too greasy. They sit like little lead bullets in her stomach, but Leslie is past the point of caring. She needs sustenance, so she eats every last bite on her plate. Then, she sacks out for an hour, two minutes, and three seconds. She figures she has earned the reprieve. She dreams of John, an alive John, and it makes her smile in her sleep. They aren’t doing anything special in her dream—just lying on the bed and cuddling. She never wants the dream to end.
She wakes up with a start, her heart pounding. When she realizes that she is alone, her heart physically aches. John should be next to her, damn it, sleeping soundly as he always did. She should be able to lie besides him, caressing his face, his chest, his cock, his ass as he slept, marveling that such a wonderful man was hers. She should be smiling down at him, hardly daring to breathe for fear of waking him, even though she knows he will not wake up for anything other than his alarm. He should be sleeping, oblivious to her gaze and touch. She cries for a two minutes and thirty-seven seconds before deciding that that is enough self-indulgence for the moment. She gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom to wash her face. Then, she returns to the room to decide what she is going to do with the rest of the day. Ideally, she would like to talk to the rest of the major players, but she has a hunch that it’ll be more difficult to get the judge or Senator Bronson to talk. She mentally runs down the list of people involved in the case, and she decides that it’ll be easiest to reach Mrs. Robertson, Amy’s mom. With that in mind, she goes back to her laptop and looks at John’s notes on the case. He has Mrs. Robertson’s number, and Leslie dials it before she can think about it.